AUTHORITIES have set up additional 2,400 parking lots near Gucun Park in Baoshan District to cope with the expected jump in visitors for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival which begins tomorrow.

Traffic police said the temporary parking spaces along the roads leading to the park besides the park’s original parking lots can accommodate 5,400 cars per day during the festival, which ends in mid-April.

Four more buses will be added to the dozens of bus lines to the park on weekends. More buses will be dispatched if the number of visitors soars, Zhang Zhong, director of the park, said yesterday.

He said the district’s traffic police will patrol the area to crack down on illegal cabs.

The park, popular for its cherry flowers, received a record 160,200 visitors on a single day last year, slightly less than its maximum daily capacity of about 200,000.

To avoid traffic jams near the park, police will temporarily ban trucks along Hutai Road when there is a substantial rise in visitors, the Baoshan District police said.

Local Metro operators have also made emergency plans if too many visitors take Metro Line 7 to the park, Zhang said.

This year’s festival will showcase about 5,000 cherry trees stretching over 160,000 square meters. They include species that bloom earlier and those from Japan that bloom late.

Ticket prices remain unchanged for the festival — 20 yuan per person as on normal days.

Zhang had said earlier that if the number of daily visitors reach 96,000, or 80 percent of the 120,000 maximum capacity allowed in the park at a time, ticket sales will be slowed down and visitors allowed only in batches.

An emergency passage linking the park’s Yuelin Avenue and a parking lot outside has been designed to disperse visitors for emergencies.

Safety measures are being strengthened for festivals and major holidays in the city after a deadly stampede at the Bund on New Year’s Eve killed 36 people.